1. Field of the Invention
With the increased usages of protective garments in hazardous environments, it has become necessary to provide means for replacing the transparent viewing openings in these suits. In most hazardous environments industrial and governmental requirements make it necessary to completely cover a person's body and protect his skin from contact with the dangerous substance. Such garments include headgear with large viewing areas. Since these viewing areas must be quite wide the excessive weight of glass prevents its use in this application. Therefore such headgear most usually adopt transparent plastics such as plexiglass in these applications.
The advantage in the lightweight characteristics of plastic visors must be balanced against the problem of excessive scratching whenever a plastic transparent material replaces a glass transparent material. Therefore the problem arises with respect to continual replacement of such visors.
Heretofore often the entire frontal area of the headgear of a protective garment was discarded and replaced, whereas with the present invention a convenient and efficient means is provided to replace only the transparent viewing material without otherwise affecting the headgear of the protective garment.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The following U.S. patents are noted to be of interest with respect to such visors within the field of the present invention: U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,677,824; 2,773,260; 3,056,140; 3,444,561; 3,505,680; 3,533,686. These patents do not suggest the concept of easy detachable securement of a replaceable transparent visor as in the present invention.
Designs to provide replaceable visors in the prior art have utilized a plurality of complicated interconnections such as hinges and clips and so forth however none of the devices provides the simplicity and one-step replacement method as is evident in the present design.